One of the signs that God's reign is here, now, not just in heaven or after the Second Coming of Christ, is the fact that in times of trouble there is still hope. There is still faith. There is still trust in God. There is still joy.
These can start as tiny mustard seeds or granules of yeast, as Jesus points out in Luke 13:8-21:
Jesus said: "What is the reign of God like? It's like mustard seed that a man planted in his garden. It grew and became a large shrub and the birds of the air nested in its branches.... It's like yeast which a woman took to knead into three measures of flour until the whole mass of dough began to rise."
If we have even the smallest bit of hope or faith or trust or joy, and plant it in the soil of God's love or knead it in the dough of our relationship with Christ, it grows and spreads.
A priest who visited Ground Zero a month and a half after the Trade Towers were destroyed described in a Sunday homily the ruins still burning, the stench of death, the surrounding skyscrapers so badly damaged that they will have to be torn down, and the blood-splattered walls of the command center, As I listened, I thought about how this tragic site has become the growing grounds of hope and faith and trust and yes even joy.
We've all seen it: the global outreach of caring, the increased participation in church, the public prayers for God's blessings on America in sectors where it used to be forbidden, etc.
And what about the attacks of Anthrax spores? Either we let the enemy spread fear, or we make this another breeding ground for God's reign.
Although we must continue to pray earnestly for an end to this biological weapon, we also need to put it into the right perspective. Name just about any other disease: it's killing more people every day than those who are affected by Anthrax. However, our media is still more interested in boosting their ratings than in helping us grow in hope and faith and trust in God. Their revenues are increased by the fear embedded in the Anthrax scare, as people tune in to find out how dangerous it's gotten each new day.
Romans 8:18-25 shows us the attitude of one who lives in the reign of God: "I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us." Whether it's the tragic loss of lives from terrorist attacks or the problems we face in our personal worlds, the reign of God is not a quick fix nor a snap of the finger solution that brings a stop to everything that's bad.
The reign of God is the glory revealed even in the midst of suffering and tragedy. It's the glory that's revealed IN YOU and ME as we plant the seeds of faith and knead the dough of trust. It's, as Saint Paul says in this portion of his letter to the Romans, hope -- hoping for what we cannot yet see -- while awaiting the end of terrorism, the end of Anthrax, the end of whatever problem is in our personal lives that we've been covering in prayer, with patient endurance.
Rejoice! The reign of God is here!
